50 forms issued for LoC crossing

7 November 2005The DawnOur Staff Correspondent

Muzaffarabad: Application forms were issued to 50 people here on Monday for permission to go to the other side of the Line of Control through the Chakothi-Uri crossing point. Those who obtained the forms were refugees from occupied Kashmir living here in camps since 1990 and affected by the Oct 8 earthquake. The refugees had queued up outside the office of the Muzaffarabad deputy commissioner since the morning. “I am here since early morning and I have got forms for myself and my wife,” Khurshid Hussain, 37, told Dawn. “I want to see my parents and other relatives across the LoC,” he said. Mr Hussain had also applied for a ride by the trans-LoC bus service but could not travel because the Kashmiri refugees of 1990 and onwards faced an undeclared ban on travelling by the bus. “We hope this time they will not prevent us from travelling. If they won’t let us go, it will be another major shock for us after the quake,” said Mr Hussain, whose several relatives, including sister-in-law, two nephews, a niece, uncle and aunt, were killed in occupied Kashmir’s Kamal Kot village in the quake. He lost another niece in Ambore refugee camp on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad. Similar were the views of Gul Hassan, 36, a refugee from occupied Kashmir serving in the AJK police as constable since 1993. “The earthquake has killed my bother and cousin in Dolanja village, while my 90-year-old father is seriously wounded. I desperately want to see my family,” he said. Government servants here were also denied the facility of travelling by the bus. Iqbal Awan, a refugee leader whose mother was admitted to a Srinagar hospital, urged Pakistan and India to give priority to the Kashmiris from the border areas.